May 2, 2007 by Baron Bodissey |
910 Group | 14:22:00 | |
A followup to yesterday’s report: I just got a note from Vasarahammer, with his summary of Mikko Ellilä’s situation. Mr. Ellilä is a Finnish writer and blogger who has been summoned by the police for a hearing under Finland’s “incitement against groups” law.
Several commenters have expressed the opinion that this whole business is likely to amount to nothing, and that Mr. Ellilä’s case will be dismissed when he goes in for his hearing on Monday.
But we’re not going to take that for granted. A little international pressure will help concentrate the mind of the Finnish government and make it realize its mistake in harassing Mikko Ellilä.
I suggest a two-pronged plan:
| 1. |
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If you are a blogger, publicize this on your blog. If you are Finnish, and have additional information on Mikko Ellilä, send it in to us or to other blogs to add to the publicity. In particular, a photo would help — I couldn’t find one. |
| 2. |
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Contact the Finnish authorities. For our American readers, the Finnish embassy has a handy US map with state-by-state contact information here.
Here’s the main contact info for their embassy in Washington:
Embassy of Finland
3301 Massachusetts Avenue N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008
U.S.A
Tel. +1-202-298 5800
Fax: +1-202-298 6030
E-mail: sanomat.was@formin.fi
Homepage: www.finland.org |
Don’t be shy: remind the Finnish authorities how highly-regarded free speech is in their country. It seems that they may have forgotten that.Here are the details on the case as sent by Vasarahammer:
Dear Baron,
A little bit of background information related to Mikko Ellilä’s case.
Finnish penal code contains a law that criminalizes incitement against a group of people. Here’s an inadequate translation of that law (Criminal code section 11 paragraph 
Whoever publicly distributes statements or other information that threatens or abuses some national, racial, ethnic or religious group or group of people that can be regarded as such, shall be sentenced for incitement against a group of people to pay a fine or imprisoned with maximum penalty of two years.
The law is very vague and leaves a lot of room for creative interpretation. Basically you can say that it is illegal in Finland to state your honest opinion about Islam in public. There are similar laws in other Nordic countries and I suspect that this law has been almost directly copied from Swedish penal code.
When the organization called Suomen Sisu published the Mohammad cartoons on their website, a police investigation was conducted based on the above-mentioned law. However, the case never went to court, since the public prosecutor decided against pursuing the case.
Here is the account of one person who saw what happened in the Suomen Sisu case.
It is in Finnish, so I will translate the most important parts:
I followed from a close distance the Mohammad cartoon furore in Finland. We tried to contact various organizations that advocate freedom of speech, various institutions, newspapers and other media. The reply was a deafening silence. I first thought that this was due to the reputation of Suomen Sisu, but after the Kaltio scandal broke, the silence of the media in defending the rights of Suomen Sisu could no longer be explained by anything else than fear.
Based on those experiences I am completely sure that if the case had went to court and the Finnish publishers of the cartoons had been prosecuted, the media would have accepted this without questioning the merits of the case.
The Kaltio case was about a small cultural newspaper that published a cartoon strip drawn by Ville Ranta. The comic strip featured a masked figure of prophet Muhammad and it criticized the gutless behaviour of Finnish leading politicians during the cartoon controversy. The editor of Kaltio was fired after several advertisers withdrew their ads from the paper. The mainstream media did not regard this as an important freedom of speech issue.Mikko Ellilä is not a politically correct writer. He is however very brave in writing under his own name and not using a pseudonym. This also makes him an easy target for the authorities. Now you should understand why Fjordman uses a pseudonym.
Recently, Government Minority Ombudsman Mikko Puumalainen threatened that Government would crack down against internet sites considered as racist. I suspect that Mikko Ellilä’s questioning by the police has something to do with Puumalainen’s statement, though it cannot be verified at this stage. By making the issue public you are helping Mikko and maybe in some way help Finland get rid of that restrictive law.
11 Comments
»
I found your blog via the Gates of Vienna, which I found by googling my name. Information concerning the case is spreading fast and will no doubt find its way in mainstream media very soon. I decided to discuss the issue in the blogosphere first and talk to the mainstream media only after they ask for an interview. The blogosphere is better than Big Media because bloggers are generally more intelligent and more honest. Mainstream media systematically lies about all issues regarding Islam. E.g. the Muslims who burned ten thousand cars and dozens of buildings in France during the Ramadan riots of 2005 were described as “youth” in the media, and the slogan “Sarkozy, sale juif!” that the Muslims shouted repeatedly was not mentioned in mainstream media at all, or was quoted in the newspapers as “Sarkozy, fasciste!” as if the Muslims somehow opposed fascism.
The main point that I have been trying to make in my blog is that the Muslims ARE fascists who want to kill Jews, atheists, homosexuals, etc.
Trying to prosecute me for saying that Islam is a totalitarian ideology is like trying to sue someone for saying Hitler was a Nazi.
You said you wanted to find a picture of me. Here are a few alternatives to choose from:
http://pix2.hotornot.com/pics/HQ/HR/HU/KL/NUKZAMECWLGA.jpg
Yours truly on the left, you can edit out the other people in the picture or turn the rest of the picture black and white and leave my picture coloured so as to highlight it:
http://tonih.iki.fi/kuvat/isot-kuvat/04-talvi/Libikset/DSC01768.JPG
I am on the left also in this picture:
http://tonih.iki.fi/kuvat/isot-kuvat/04-talvi/Libikset/DSC01765.JPG
More pictures available on request, but I think these will do at the moment.
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You quoted this:
“Government Minority Ombudsman Mikko Puumalainen threatened that Government would crack down against internet sites considered as racist. I suspect that Mikko Ellilä’s questioning by the police has something to do with Puumalainen’s statement, though it cannot be verified at this stage.”
This was confirmed today. I called the police department and they said the “Minority Ombudsman” (AKA Thought Police) had asked them to investigate my blog because of its allegedly racist content.
Can somebody please explain this to me:
If a Finnish blogger is investigated because of content in his blog, why is it that publishers, distributors, even owners of the Quran and the Sunnah are never known to be cited for hate crimes because of content from those two sources?
Many passages in those books, holy or otherwise, would amount to incitement to violence, and the same would apply to mullahs and imams who preach in the mosques and especially when they preach quoting those passages. There are numerous documented examples in the UK and in the US.
SIAD has also made the same point when it demanded for an executive ruling to expunge relevant passages of the Quran or deemed them as unconstitutional.
If it is that easy to cite a blogger for hate crime, it is far easier for any blogger to file a police complaint on a local imam or mosque. The Quran incites violence. Ask Salman Rushdie, et al.
Clarification would be appreciated because if the question, above, makes sense then hate crime laws serve Group910 more than it serves Islamists. This is the irony: Group910, when it defends free speech, it defends the circulation of and proselytism by the Quran that incites violence. Doesn’t make sense
Perhaps in theory Red, I’d agree with you. It would make sense that hate crime legislation would target books which call for the explict murder of jews and other unbelievers. But in practice we know that’s not how things are going to shake out. The fact is that laws like these will be used against those who DO speak out against hate. Mikko’s present situation, amongst others, is a perfect example. In defending free speech, we are defending the right to circulate the Quran. But in a level playing field, in the battle of ideas, 7th century bigotry and violence don’t stand a chance.
DK Shideler,
Your answer is very unsatisfactory; it doesn’t answer anything. I should reiterate:
1. Pick a mosque, any imam, and file a complaint under the hate speech law. It is that easy, but is never done. Why? Why? Why? Whether prosecution happens, that’s secondary. The Finnish blogger will not be charged, even he said so, but that’s not what riles everybody.
2. If you defend free speech, how will you - how will SIAD justify its demand to expunge passages of the Quran? How will you say you are against violence that the Quran preaches?
There is nothing theoretical in all this. In SIAD’s case, for example, it doesn’t have the basis to even open its mouth. Don’t your see?
In the Finnish blogger’s case, he should not be defending free speech. He should be accusing the Government of Finland, to wit, the police and justices department of failing to invoke the pertinent harm speech law against the Quran, imams et al - hence necessitating him to publish the blog. The Mohamed cartoons is a complaint - in cartoon form - against Islamic hate speech, but it was read the other way round. If the Quran, and better yet Islamists, were expelled from Finland, then the Finnish blogger has no reason to blog - no Islam, no problem.
Do you now understand the problem that I don’t understand with all this chest beating?
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